Day 181 - Scavenger- Chapter 2 - (1755 words)

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SCAVENGER

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 2

The day before

“Mom?” Aaron called out as he opened the front and came in from his after school job. They were more than making ends meet, but Aaron wanted to do for himself as much as possible. His mother was still young enough to enjoy life, she had been sixteen herself when he was born and in her early thirties had worked hard to provide for the both of them up until now. Aaron didn't need to relieve her of what she never thought of as a burden, but he wanted to take a mantle of his won.

Responsibility.

That was his thing, at school and at work he had a reputation for not letting things slide. He took charge of things, not because he was a leader but because things did not get done on their own. He wanted an Xbox and a Playstation and made no assumptions about the availability and accessibility of funds for these, he got them himself by earning them. Not by siphoning off funds from his mother in exchange, but by finding and working a job to earn the money.

He got pocket money, an allowance that had been paid to him since he was eight years old, and at first he had spent it. When he learned what money really meant, how it was spent on him and bills to make the life they had bearable though, he never touched it again unless he had to. It was saved, saved for the day that his mother would need it and not know where to turn. That was his safety net, it was only a few thousand dollars after a few years, but it was increasing over time and compounding with money saved from his jobs.

He kept meticulous records of incomings and outgoings, always making sure he had net gains every week. He never drank or smoke, not because he was puritanical in any way but because he saw it as a waste. The more liberal and selfish pursuits would be for when he had an excess of money and his mother was also in the same position.

Aaron was not massively into sports, he spent his time on academic pursuits and when he needed time alone or time to process thoughts he would run. An early riser for the solitary pursuit of not fitness but focus, he would run along the riverside which was several blocks from where they could afford to rent a place, just inside the right school zone, but only just.

The houses he passed on the way gave him goals, not for having more or status symbols like the cars in the driveways but for the freedom to have that choice. His mother Tamara, her friends called her Tara for short, but he always called her by her full name, did not have a full range of choices available to her. When he was old enough to know this he respected her more for the choices she had made to get them where they were, not less for the ones she was unable to choose. He wanted a better selection for Tamara, for himself and for the child he would one day have.

There was no reply from inside the house and that was not unusual as they kept schedules that often conflicted and he was big enough to take care of himself on any given day, he had been that way since he learned how to cook for and feed them both at ten years of age. Allowances saved allowed for him to prepare her favourite meal and to serve her everything she liked. He saw how bad in was in the way that she reacted, like it was the greatest thing she had ever tasted. It only drove him to do better next time, and that was what he did.

Never make the same mistake twice.

He did not call out again, if she was home she would have said and the door to her bedroom was open so she had no 'friends' over. She had a semi regular boyfriend in the affable Dax, but she never referred to him as such and she had girlfriends that she would gossip with and share a few drinks with. She never got too far out of hand, she liked to have fun but it was a very different fun from what her only child enjoyed. She never let it go too far, but she had her moments and if Aaron had his way she would have them as frequently or as infrequently as she desired. She did not always choose her moments, sometimes they were chosen for her. That was what Aaron wanted to fix, that she had that freedom.

If Dax had been around then the door would have been closed if they wanted privacy, and Aaron would have known well enough to disappear to the games room and slip on the bluetooth headphones and crank the volume. Tamara was discrete and not noisy, but it was a boundary they both drew wide so that they would never have to face it, cross it or defend it. So the door was always closed if she wanted privacy, the reasons were never clear and they did not need to be.

The door was open and according to the schedule she should have been home that day. Of course it was not a concern that she was not, as an errand or urgent matter may have come up and she would have gone off to deal with that. Aaron knew there would be a note, on the whiteboard in the kitchen next to the fridge. That was his next stop after waking the computer and checking his email account for any updates. He would catch extra shifts at the library sometimes, they would often get drop outs for the evening shifts among the librarians and they knew that if Aaron was free he would always cover.

The library did not pay well but it paid regularly and it allowed him to read, to study and to spread his wings early. Time in the evenings was spent stacking and reorganising things, and he would hit the audio books while he was working. Hands free headphones meant his phone would connect to the wireless network he helped them maintain and the stream the contents of whatever he wanted to listen to. It was mostly non fiction, and fairly eclectic in taste because he wanted to know everything. Real choice came from freedom and freedom came from power. Power was most often bought, he knew this from his studies, but in learning he gained power as well so he took the road that was open to him and learned as much as he could.

The fridge swung open and he checked the contents for something of a guilty pleasure. He knew the perils of High Frustose Corn Syrup, and guessed at the potential threat of rumoured shadows of Aspartame but he drank both. He slipped from cutting sugar to cutting processed diet additives, but never stuck to either. He burned it all running and maintained a lean but not too muscular physique despite drinking what he considered crap he ate well with a fibre rich and generally low carb diet. Tamara was constantly dieting, whether she needed it or not was irrelevant, but they both hit the fibre and regarded carbs as the occasional treat.

The choice of drinks was bothering him, he was dithering and he knew it. Why could he not decide? This was an easy choice, which did he want and what was available to him right now? Still he hovered, the door remained open and the light active, long enough that the warning sound started and he closed the door to stop it. He was about to re-open and try to decide again when he realised what it was that was annoying him.

The whiteboard was blank.

It was not that there was no message, it was that there was nothing on it. Not just empty but wiped clean it stared at him blankly from his peripheral vision and imposed itself on his consciousness until the absence of any traces of writing got his direct attention. There was no note, and there was no previous notes. Aaron was the only one that cleaned the whiteboard, Tamara would just smear the previous aside and write amongst the inky dregs. This was alcohol cleaned, he could smell it.

Drink forgotten Aaron came back through the dining area, past the unset table and made a beeline for the living room. The coffee table was also clean, no remotes and no magazines, no TV guides and no empty Blu ray or DVD cases for him assign the correct discs to and file away. The collection near the Television was as tidy and orderly as he had last left it which mean that Tamara had not been home all day or had tidied up and put everything away neatly.

Which meant that she had not been home all day.

The Television was big, not imposing but enough to make a film feel like a film and make the occasional gaming session a lot more immersive than in the study where he would usually play. He had time to wind down in the evenings and he had trouble sleeping, the games would make his eyes heavy but his mind dance. It was like a drug for his dreams, and training for his reflexes since he had the fitness but not the discipline of a sporting activity.

In the middle of the screen was an envelope sticky taped to the glass, and Aaron knew it would leave a mark he would have to clean carefully otherwise he would see it every time he watched TV or a film, even a game. Defects and imperfections were irritants. He came to the envelope where his name was typed on the front of it in bold type. He wondered why his mother would type his name and not write it by hand, she was not the typing sort. She was also not the sort to stick something to the centre of a screen. Imperfections in life were impossible to avoid, but she knew her son well enough to know how much this would ache in him and she would never had added to that without good cause.

The envelope had his name and two words on it.

Aaron Hunt.

Start here.